don@debian.org wrote:Debian decides to distribute works containing your font. The original upstream disappears. A bug is discovered in the font, and Debian needs to fix it.
On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Marco d'Itri wrote:Yes, and this is considered a feature. Usually existing documents should not break because a font is changed, even if this fixes a bug.
On Sun, 29 Jan 2006, Don Armstrong wrote:
The same argument applies equally well to programs. We should be intelligent enough in our fixing of bugs in fonts not to break existing documents, just like we should be intelligent enough in our fixing of bugs in programs not to break existing scripts.
This discussion seems to have gone into the weeds about WHY someone would want to make a change and whether Debian is able to make such changes reasonably.
It doesn't matter to the free-ness of a package licensed this way whether Debian can or will be a good citizen. If I can't make any changes I like, including nasty, stupid, ugly breakages, and distribute the result, it's non-free. Name-change requirements are acceptible (barely) on the package name, but not API identifiers, and that includes filenames that are part of an API.
It seems a clear test: if I can't distribute a changed version that can be dropped into a system without changing other software,
it ain't free.What ever happenened to the LaTex license, by the way? That had the same non-freeness.
-- Mark Rafn dagon@dagon.net <http://www.dagon.net/>